The Waves are Calling
by SilverMoonPhantom
Summary: A collection of Moana/DP crossover oneshots and drabbles
1. Conch Shells

**Tha-thump**

 **Tha-thump**

Drum beats thrummed inside his bones, eyelids heavy as he stepped alongside the shadowy figures. Each footstep brought him gliding across soft sand and black rock. Both faster than he could track, and slower than he could concentrate on, they moved as one.

The feet around him did not tamp down grass, and the only sound of breathing was his own, loud in his ears.

 **Tha-thump**

Torches flickered and snapped, silent in the night air around them. He didn't know if the white swirls around them were made from smoke or fog, but it seemed to press down on his thoughts to keep them quiet. It was like the slightest sound could shatter the moving stillness that engulfed them.

 **Tha-thump**

The full moon passed above them, wide palm leaves blotting out the crisp silver light that perched upon the world. Unfamiliar constellations twisted overhead, old legends watching him from the patterns he could not name.

Where was he?

who was he?

His foot struck something hard, and the tap of pressure was enough to drag his awareness down through the fog.

The roar of the ocean seemed to slowly seep into his awareness, softly crashing waves adding a staticky baseline to the rhythmic thumping of deep drums.

He paused, staring at a spiked white shell, smooth pink innards gleaming at him in the torchlight.

The procession seemed to part around his figure, whispered voices and the weight of a hundred eyes on his back slowly fading.

thu-thump

He blinked slowly, deliberately, blotting out the golden torchlight and silver moonlight, concentrating on his breath and steady (faint) heartbeat. When he opened his eyes again, there was only silver. The air seemed clearer, like a smell he could not recognize had been cleared from it and replaced with the salt and brine of the sea.

(thump)

Danny rubbed his eyes, scrubbing his hands through his hair as he squinted up at the moon. The echoes of drumbeats still seemed to pulse in his skin, but the sound itself was gone. He hunched his shoulders, tucking his elbows in against the sharp winds gusting around him. All he could see was sand and tropical plants, and a wide, wide stretch of open water.

Danny stared at the ocean, thoughts still sluggish as he tried to comprehend what he was seeing. He had been in the ghost zone. He heard a sound, like a strange horn, and the build-up of drums. After that... just fog. He stared down at the shell that had nudged his foot, scooping it into his hand and tracing a finger along one of the spines. Grains of sand fell away under his touch.

Something clattered behind him, and he twisted around to see a human figure sprinting away into the night, leaping over plants and over large stones.

Too bewildered to give chase, Danny sat down in the soft sand and faced the ocean.

The shell felt heavy in his hand.


	2. Food for the Spirit

**Hunger.**

FoodFoodFoodFoodFoodFoodFoodFoodFoodFoodFoodFood

The endless gnawing hunger did not relent, no matter how many fish he caught. He had eaten a bit of everything he thought might be edible on the island. He had chewed on roots and stems and strange insects that tried to bite him back. He cracked open shellfish and tore open true fish, and dragged an eel out of the water by its jaw, mindless of the red (green?) rivulets being torn out of him as it thrashed.

Hell, he tried licking rocks out of desperation.

Nothing helped.

He was well fed, certainly, but the hunger persisted, yawning tirelessly at the horizon of what seemed like an endless ocean. His attempts to fly over it were quickly exhausted, as the hunger seemed to sap at his strength, weakening his powers until crossing the sea seemed like a pipe dream.

He survived.

Built some shelter against the sun and wind, collected coconuts for fresh water, and managed to make a rudimentary distilling machine.

Too bad he was an Ice core. Fire was way more difficult to create than he remembered reading about. He'd gotten used to eating fish raw, just to avoid having to keep the flames alive. It was like sushi, right? Just eat it fresh and you're good.

There were plenty of fish around - the small island was lush and fruitful - but god, he was always hungry.

He adapted.

His skin was as pale as ever, but at some point he had stopped burning. His fingertips and soles had developed callouses, and the ones on his knuckles faded. He had gathered countless shells and twisted plant fibers together when he was bored, stringing them up to catch light and dance in an ever-playful wind.

Storms were terrible, but the island provided a shelter in the form of a small sea-level cave. It was easy enough to seal off with some intangibility and rock-shifting. It was wet and smelled of rotting seaweed, but it was safe.

He waited.

He waited for another natural portal to crop up - for his friends to appear and rescue him. He waited as the stars turned in the sky and the tides rose and fell. He went through nearly a dozen shelters before he figured out how to make it sturdy.

His hair grew long, and he cut it once, but after that resolved to just let it be. He tied it with rough, hand-spun cord, and taught himself to braid. When he was feeling playful, he'd nestle colorful flowers or bright shells into the dark strands.

He was lonely, and lost, but he was alive.

And then one day, his hunger _twisted._

It seemed to sing gleefully, and he saw a shape on the horizon. A sharp-eyed predator seemed to slip into his skin, green eyes narrowing until they could see the tiny forms of a fleet of wide-sailed ships headed in their direction.

Hunger crouched down, watching those ships approach with unblinking intensity, white hair tossed by the ocean breeze.


	3. Taboo

He was taboo.

When he passed through the village they did not acknowledge him. They did not let their eyes linger on his contradictions, or on his form at all. It did not matter if his face was young while his hair was bone-white. It was not age that bleached the color

It did not matter that his eyes glowed with unearthly light in even the faintest shadow.

His very presence spread the feeling of cold and darkness - of ill, best forgotten things seeping up through the cracks in your soul.

They were not to meet his gaze, said the elders. Avoid looking at him at all, if you can help it.

They were not to speak to him.

If he spoke, one must not listen.

If he gestured to catch attention, one must avert their eyes.

If he casts a shadow, do not step in it. If he does not cast one, then be mindful of any tricks, for that is a sure sign he is about to play one.

These things were agreed upon, and served them well despite the trickster that walked among them.

They left offerings for him - foods and tokens that he appeared to find favorable. He refused a part of an offering occasionally, but after they began setting aside food for him their own no longer vanished. Through trial and error, they learned what he wanted.

The boy watched them, occasionally. He spoke in a strange tongue and smiled with teeth that were a bit too sharp. He ignored the rules of polite society, casually waltzing through sacred areas - sometimes even gliding above them, feet never touching the earth.

Chief Wialiki wondered if this creature was the result of whatever was poisoning their earth. It must have been no coincidence that their crops began catching disease and the ocean's bounty fled just as he appeared. (or was he the cause of all this?)

But that theory departed when life returned in a flourish of mana. Fruits were restored, leaves regrown, but the pale wanderer remained.

His daughter returned a week later, with salt-dried skin and a grin of triumph. Her smile spoke of victory, and the callouses on her palms and fingers spoke of the time she'd been at sea. Somehow, the idea that she'd traveled across the ocean with a demigod at her side, and the ocean itself as a companion was more believable than the fact that damn rooster was still alive.

Before he could even explain the situation, his daughter took one look at the green-eyed figure watching them from the shadows and started yelling at it.

It responded in its strange, twisting language, apparently interested in the turn of events.

Moana _replied in the same language_ and the figure grinned, sharp teeth glinting in the sunlight, too-bright eyes squinting in some expression that was at the same time relaxed and delighted.

"I'll deal with you later." his daughter threatened, shaking an oar in its direction.

The figure waved, light laughter scattering like pebbles over the sand before it vanished.


	4. Finders, Keepers

It was one thing to travel across the sea to find a demigod.

It was another thing entirely to follow that demigod down into Lalotai.

Moana took a breath, peering down the chute to the foggy light far below.

"Of course we have to go there," She hissed, pacing back and forth across the carved stone, raking her hands through still-damp curls. "It's not like he could have left his fishhook on a nice, safe island, could he? No~ of course it had to be down there."

She took another quick breath, steeling her nerves.

Here goes everything.

As soon as her feet left the ledge, she could feel something change in the air. Her stomach swooped at the sensation of falling, and the air instantly grew thinner - lighter somehow, with a faint fermented taste like the Palolo her grandmother loved. She wanted to scream, but the breath was quickly stolen from her lungs, rushing by with a blur of deep ocean and strange colors.

Something with far too many eyes dove alongside her for a moment, and she could feel her heart skip a beat, but it quickly swam away from the smooth vortex she traveled in.

A world of color bloomed before her eyes, and it was with no small amount of alarm that she realized she was falling and there was hard ground below her.

This was a bad idea.

Moana braced herself, hunching her shoulders and turning her face away from the quickly-approaching land mass.

She let out a startled womph as her remaining breath was pushed out of her upon impact, and an even more startled squeak as the ground caved under her, springing back up like she was just a coconut that had been dropped on water. Bright purple grass flung her up into the air, and then remained hard on the second 'thump'. She lay there for a long moment, heart pounding in her chest from what could have been a very unpleasant ending to her adventure.

She rolled over, groaning as she looked up at the strange sky. Everything felt... slightly off. Like she was looking at the world through a thin layer of water and was just barely at the wrong angle. The ground under her twitched. She froze. It shuddered again and she hopped to her feet, instincts screaming at her as she leapt to another ledge.

The 'grass' she had been laying on stood up, forming a slumped sort of humanoid with several long, curving arms. She peered over the edge, but was unable to see its feet through the thick green fog swirling below. It glided away. Was it even walking on anything?

Moana stood up, taking a deep breath and looking up to see a flash of Maui's thick hair as he turned to walk away from watching her. He didn't even offer to help?

She scowled, took a step back to steady herself and ended up tripping over a root, flailing back into a thick, spongy leaf. The root sank back into the earth as she stared at it. Something in her peripherals twitched, and she felt the hair on her arms stand on end. What she thought was a rock suddenly whipped around, a huge humanoid mask staring at her with glowing features.

It made a croaking, rattling noise, like something's throat had been half-crushed but it was trying to speak anyway. A pair of arms snaked out threateningly, and then a second pair of arms followed suit, and it rushed at her faster than she could react.

Moana flinched backwards, kicking her feet out and sending herself backward into the plants. She got a quick glance of the masked thing being snapped up and eaten by one of the other luminescent monsters, before the roots under her palms gave way. Strong fingers scrabbled at the roots, but it seemed like they were actively trying to wriggle out of her grasp, and suddenly she was falling again.

The acrid fermented smell got stronger, but her descent slowed. She was able to get her feet under her and... somehow land softly on her toes on the next bizzare purple island. Fog obscured the one she had fallen from, but she could see several other lush, purple islands floating about in a haze of twisting green fluid and strange life forms.

The heart pulsed softly on her sternum, reassuring in this otherworldly environment. There was no singular source of light she could see - no way of seeing north or south. With a start, she realized that her tiny island was starting to drift sideways - spinning slowly on an axis, while gravity still pulled her toward it. (or was the world just spinning around her?)

She climbed around the island, feeling her skin crawl as the sense of 'gravity' shifted as well. Trying to jump off it didn't help - she just fell back down to it again, and the thick, ever-moving fog made her doubt that she was even facing in the right direction any more.

 _'This was a bad idea.'_

Her whispered words solidified in her guts, and with a startling clarity she realized that... Maui was probably going to leave her here. He was a selfish, uncaring trickster of a demigod. Sure, he liked playing the hero, but he'd tried throwing her into the open ocean several times. If it hadn't been for the sea favoring her - delivering her back to the boat faster than any human could swim - she would have drowned out there. He would have killed her, and he seemed disappointed that he hadn't.

Moana sat down on her little rock of an island, staring out at the endless fog and miasma of the underworld.

 _Her hands were shaking._

She watched countless glowing creatures twist through the fog - some humanoid, some shaped like animals. Some must have been animals, for they had familiar limb shapes, but she had never seen those beaks - or those claws. Once, she heard the rustle of scales and watched a twisting snakelike shape flap by with bird wings and wide, wide blue eyes.

It didn't seem to notice her.

One of the creatures did notice. It appeared from a swirl of thick fog, stepping away from the twisting smoke as it clung to his shoulders like a living thing.

It seemed... surprised. Uncomfortably red eyes met her own from across the expanse of (mana?) strange air. It had blue skin, and shapes upon its head that could be some sort of black horn. Humanoid, perhaps, but its limbs were hidden behind a long white cape, and many-limbed creatures seemed to be the norm here.

It glided toward her, looking around like it was expecting something to pop up and snatch her away.

Alas, no Maui. The last of her hope on that front had already trickled past

Now that it was closer, she could see the curve of tall, pointed ears. Bright blue was such an unsettling color to see a humanoid face in. She suspected it would glow brightly in the dark.

It said a word in a strange language she did not recognize, and tilted its head like it was waiting for an answer. (He?)

"I'm sorry, I don't understand you."

She watched it carefully, heart pounding with the knowledge that if it DID try to attack her, she'd be pretty helpless.

The creature made an odd face and mouthed a part of her words, a strange accent curling the letters. He gestured to his own neck, and she realized she had been tightly clasping the heart through her necklace since he had shown up.

"This is the heart of Te Fiti." She answered quietly, grasping it just a bit tighter. Red eyes blinked and he tilted his head again, frowning. Moana groaned, letting go of the hollow necklace, leaning back on the rock with a sigh of exasperated exhaustion. It was getting to the point that she was tired of being scared.

Her hands had stopped shaking. Finally.

"Look, I don't belong here, so if you could call Maui or direct me to Tamatoa's lair, or to the real world in general, I'd really appreciate- HEY!" Moana yelped, grabbing at the creature's cape as it flitted away again, her necklace held in one clawed hand. fast!

The black claw flicked open her grandmother's shell necklace, eyes widening at the pulsing green stone nestled inside.

He looked at her, eyes narrowing to calculating slits

and vanished.

A moment later, the green world around her went black, and her mind snapped to unconsciousness.


End file.
